Geneva, October 16 (RHC)-- The World Health Organization (WHO) says the Israeli military has wiped out entire Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip as it presses ahead with its bombardment campaign against the besieged coastal enclave.

WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has appealed to the international community to open up Gaza border crossings and allow the entry of aid supplies into the territory.  Ghebreyesus added that the Israeli military’s call for the evacuation of hospitals in northern Gaza before the forces started bombing them would result in the death of many seriously ill patients.

Thirteen health facilities had been attacked in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war, he noted, adding that the stock of medical supplies had run out.  The World Health Organization earlier described Israel’s order for hospitals in northern Gaza to be evacuated as a “death sentence” for the sick and injured.

“Forcing more than 2,000 patients to relocate to southern Gaza, where health facilities are already running at maximum capacity and unable to absorb a dramatic rise in the number patients, could be tantamount to a death sentence.”

Palestinian resistance movement Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Storm on October 7th, penetrating deep into the territories occupied by the Israel regime, by carrying out large-scale air, land, and sea strikes.

The group said the operation was a reaction to the recurring desecration of the al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied al-Quds as well as intensified Israeli atrocities against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Israel responded with intensive air strikes on civilian targets in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 2,329 Palestinians in Gaza and wounding 9,714 others, according to the territory’s health ministry.

The regime has intensified the siege of Gaza, leaving the city, home to more than 2.3 million Palestinians, without water, electricity, and internet.